Oct. 6, 2013

DALLAS — To complete a 21-point fourth-quarter comeback, Southern Methodist quarterback Garrett Gilbert spun out of the pocket, rolled to his right, slipped multiple tackles and threw the ball about 40 yards across his body to an open receiver for a toe-tapping catch in the back of the end zone.

And the remarkable play still wasn’t Saturday’s greatest escape act.

That honor goes to the Rutgers football team, which somehow managed to survive a defensive collapse and avoid a devastating defeat by pulling out a 55-52 triple-overtime victory against SMU in front of 19,436 at windy Gerald J. Ford Stadium in the American Athletic Conference opener for both teams.

“When a team comes from behind in the fourth quarter and pushes a game into overtime the way SMU did, I think it’s easy to spend more time thinking about that than looking forward into the overtime,” Rutgers coach Kyle Flood said. “Our team was able to (look forward) and for that I’m proud of them.”

True freshman running back Justin Goodwin of Madison starred early and late in the first significant action of his career as he finished with 222 yards from scrimmage and three touchdowns, the last of which was a 17-yard run on the final play.

He broke two tackles, including one in the backfield, and carried two defenders the final 5 yards to reward Rutgers’ defense for holding SMU to a field goal on its third overtime drive.

“He seemed pretty calm out there. He seemed confident. He had some cuts all over him. He was bleeding. It didn’t seem to shake him,” quarterback Gary Nova said while also praising Goodwin’s speed and elusiveness. “He kept playing hard and it worked out for us in the end.”

Nova finished 19 of 33 for 283 yards and four touchdowns with one interception, and combined with Goodwin and the defense, which scored when cornerback Nadir Barnwell fell on a fumble in the end zone, to help Rutgers (4-1, 1-0) build leads of 21-0 in the second quarter and 35-14 at the end of the third.

“Some guys don’t understand,” junior linebacker Kevin Snyder said. “We went into halftime and some guys are thinking, ‘OK, this game is over,’ but you’ve got to play four quarters no matter what. The same thing happened last game (against Arkansas) but we were coming from the (losing) end of it.”

(Page 2 of 2)

The start of the fourth quarter brought the start of chaos as SMU (1-4, 0-1) began exploiting a weakness in the zone coverage and continued to do so. Gilbert passed for 286 of his 484 yards — a record by a Rutgers’ opponent — and led five touchdown drives in the fourth quarter and overtime.

“I think their quarterback is an excellent player,” Flood said of the Texas transfer. “I think he is a NFL quarterback. When somebody is a NFL quarterback on the other sideline there is no lead which is safe.”

Gilbert completed 45 of 70 passes, including 18 for 217 yards to Jeremy Johnson, who scored two of SMU’s three touchdowns in the final 11 minutes, 8 seconds of regulation. He also made the catch on the two-point conversion kept alive by Gilbert that tied the score at 35-35 with 79 seconds remaining.

“With the pursuit of our D-line and our linebackers, I figured he was going to be tackled soon,” Barnwell said. “I started jogging over. Then when I saw him throw it I was like, ‘I know he didn’t just throw this ball all the way across the field.’ I turned around and (Johnson) is just sitting there. Before I could even run to him he just tip-toed his way in.”

With a chance to end the game in regulation, Nova moved Rutgers across midfield but he lost a fumble at the end of a 3-yard scramble with 50 seconds remaining. He made up for the mistake in overtime by throwing a pair of touchdowns to Leonte Carroo, including a 29-yarder on a third-and-24 that saw Carroo drag his feet just before crashing at near-full speed into the brick wall behind the end zone.

“It was time for someone to step up and make a play,” said Carroo, adding that he shook off the effects of the wall. “Gary threw two great balls on both plays. We just have a tremendous trust in each other.”

SMU started with possession in the third overtime, but this time the run-and-shoot offense stalled after three plays. Chase Hover kicked a 37-yard field goal to make it 52-49 — Gilbert rushed for touchdowns in each of the first two overtimes — setting up the small opening that Rutgers needed.

“We didn’t have a great second half,” said middle linebacker Steve Longa, who made a team-high 14 tackles. “Our offense had our back. We needed to make that stop. It wasn’t much to ask.”